news

tencent technology author wu bin

editor: zheng kejun

on september 20, beijing time, the iphone 16 series was officially released.

since the online pre-sale started a week ago, customers who have made reservations will receive their new devices via express delivery or in person in the store.

as usual, apple stores across the country will open early on this day to welcome customers to pick up their orders. at the apple retail store in sanlitun, beijing, employees had already completed preparations for the first sale in the early morning and opened on time at 8 a.m.

live coverage of apple's beijing store sales: store staff applauds the first batch of customers

heavy rain in beijing cannot stop the enthusiasm of apple fans

as a cold front passed through beijing, it rained heavily this morning, but apple fans were still enthusiastic. as of 7:30 a.m. on september 20, there were nearly 200 people queuing in front of the sanlitun apple store.

in addition to the reserved pickup area, apple has also set up a waiting area next to the apple store where users without reservations can wait to enter the store to make purchases after the store officially opens.

the first user in the queue area of ​​the sanlitun store told tencent technology that he chooses to buy the latest iphone every year. this year he reserved an iphone 16 pro max desert gold and arrived at the apple store at around five in the morning to queue up.

the first customer of apple sanlitun store: bought a gold iphone pro max and lined up at 5:30

as a "reserved program" for the release of apple's new iphone, scalpers still sell iphone series at a markup outside stores across the country. according to tencent technology's on-site understanding at the sanlitun apple store, the current iphone 16 pro max generally has a price increase of 300 to 500 yuan, while the price increase of the other three models this year is not high. some scalpers will increase the price of the pro version by 50 yuan, and there is no price increase for the standard version.

a scalper said that the newly launched desert gold color in the pro series is the most popular, and they can buy it for an additional 300-500 yuan. he has a desert gold titanium iphone 16 pro max 1tb version, which he is ready to sell for a premium of 800 yuan.

the chinese version of iphone 16 is temporarily out of apple intelligence

at the worldwide developers conference (wwdc) in june this year, apple previewed a number of new ai features and planned to integrate generative ai capabilities into iphone applications through "apple intelligence."

with apple intelligence, users can customize emojis, ai-generated text messages, and wake up the upgraded siri voice assistant on their iphones. apple's ai system is available in the iphone 16 series that went on sale today, as well as the previous generation iphone 15 pro version.

“we estimate that more than 15% of apple users will upgrade to iphone 16 as apple intelligence is the killer app many have been waiting for.”

dan ives, an analyst at wedbush securities, pointed out in a report that this is a huge opportunity. he predicts that there will be about 270 million iphones waiting to be upgraded in four years. however, unlike the global simultaneous launch of new products in previous years, apple ai, which will be officially launched in october, will definitely not be available on the licensed iphone 16 this year.

regarding the topic of not being able to use apple ai in the short term, the consumer standing first in line at sanlitun told tencent technology that the lack of ai would not affect his purchase of new products, but he still looked forward to experiencing this feature as soon as possible.

apple and huawei launch new phones on the same day

similar to previous years, during this year's pre-sale period, the iphone 16 pro series is still more popular than the iphone 16 series. as of 22:00 on september 19, the pre-order delivery time of the pro on apple's official website will be extended by 3-4 weeks, while the delivery time of the standard version is about 2 weeks. this year, more platforms have participated in the pre-order of the iphone 16 series. according to the situation on jd.com and tmall on september 13, the day when pre-orders were opened, the two mobile phones of the iphone 16 pro series were sold out quickly, and the delivery date on the same day was extended to october.

before the release of iphone 16, apple analyst ming-chi kuo released the latest forecast report, saying that the latest results showed that the pre-order sales of the iphone 16 series in the first weekend were about 37 million units, a year-on-year decrease of about 12.7% compared with the first weekend sales of the iphone 15 series last year. the main reason for the decline in data was that the iphone 16 pro series fell short of sales expectations.

he said that the main reason why the sales of iphone 16 pro were lower than expected was that apple intelligence, the biggest selling point of this generation, could not be launched together with the iphone 16 series, and the fierce competition in the chinese market continued to affect the demand for iphone.

today, huawei's first three-fold screen mobile phone will be officially launched at 10:08. this is the second time huawei has confronted apple head-on since the release of mate60 last year. the new product form and strong marketing channels will indeed have a significant impact on the sales of iphone 16, especially the iphone 16 pro max for the high-end market.

however, kuo ming-chi also stated in the analysis report that although the pre-order sales of the iphone 16 pro series decreased year-on-year in the first weekend, the production plan of the supply chain should not change much in the short term. when apple intelligence is released in the fourth quarter, coupled with peak season promotions and other means, iphone 16 shipments are expected to improve further, and he believes that apple will adopt a more aggressive product strategy in 2025 to boost demand.

zhang li (pseudonym), who has been operating mobile phone sales channels in zhongguancun for a long time, provided tencent technology with a quotation for new phones on the morning of september 20. except for the iphone 16 pro max, which has a small price increase, all other phones can be purchased according to the price on apple's official website. "there are a lot of channels this year, and i can only make money from the channels plus tax points. i don't make much this year." zhang li told tencent technology.

unlike the situation of three prices a day in previous years, the channel prices of the iphone 16 series this year will be more sensitive. "basically it will change once an hour. the price you see now will change in the next hour," said zhang li.